all year long, i think of halloween costumes. but you already know this.

so this year, i thought instead of trying to decide on one costume, i'll just throw a party at my own place so i can have as many costume changes as i want (think eva longoria at the alma awards)

save the date- saturday, november 1! (i figured most people will be going downtown on the 31st, since it falls on a friday this year). friends near and far- i hope to see you there/barely recognize you under your super creative/cool costume!

The grad students start off every year by going to one of the roundabouts/intersections on campus that has the most foot and bike traffic, and they eat lunch and watch the freshmen crash because they don't quite know what they're doing yet. Poor kids!

Just thought I'd share some pictures of a tree that my brother and I felled this past weekend. This thing was about 4 stories high and almost fell on our house after the hurricane.
























































We first cut the tree down with a chain saw, realized it was leaning on another tree, and so tied the base with a wire rope, swung it around a tree to the front of the house, and attached the other end to my truck. As you can see from the picture, we pulled pretty hard with the truck until it fell and the wire rope snapped on the last tug (thankfully not killing anyone in the process). Also, my brother and I were fully aware of the dangers of using the wire rope (we both have experience on oil rigs), so we're not completely stupid, just slightly stupid and vengeful against trees that try to fall on our house.

who else is going to acl?
i'm looking for a ticket right now...so i might be joining you all.

AND for those going, you must see antibalas on friday:


the A.V. section in the Onion sold me on it with this first sentence: "antibalas serves the legacy of afrobeat legend fela kuti by sounding more or less exactly like him." haha

btw, the cover story on this week's onion is amazing.

I just realized Katie has a separate blog. And so does Lauren. Since I don't, you will have to put up with stupid long posts from me! But now I can spy on Katie and Lauren yay.

You know what sucks? Going to school to study diseases, but GETTING THEM INSTEAD. I've been sick twice since I've been here, and it's only been a month. I think the first time was because of too little sleep/too much boozing/sharing of beer pong cups, but this latest one is just crazy infectious. Our test on Tuesday sounded like some sort of coughing symphony.

Normally this wouldn't piss me off as much, but since I'm going to Austin this weekend (!!!!!!!) to stand in the sun for three days straight, I am all yar. I am still extremely excited though. Everything worked out amazingly quickly. Except for all the details, like how to pick up my ticket or how I'm getting into town from the airport, but I can figure that stuff out later tonight hopefully.

I wanted to come visit Austin a bit later in October, but nearly every weekend is full then, and November is too close to Thanksgiving anyway. And this is the best possible combination of events, as even my dad admitted. Haha.

Evidence that my classmates are pretty cool: I was invited to a pig roast for next weekend. Holy crap! There are pictures of the last year's pig roast and everything. Woot.

School really isn't that bad. I don't know. I guess I expected it to be harder. And I think it will get harder when we start doing stuff I've never seen before. All the second years say to do as much stuff/have as much fun as possible during first year, because it gets a lot harder to do that stuff later. So I'm thinking in mid-October I might go down to Duke and see Tami, and of course a New York trip is inevitable. And I'm submitting an application for a conference in Boston so that might pan out too??

also, you know what is delicious? maryland steamed crabs. mmmm. omg i just noticed that i used proper capitalization for the first part of my post. WHAT IS HAPPENING

I need to post some pictures but that seems complicated. Also, you guys should tell more about your lives! I am like, what is going on.

Colleen and Dane I should be seeing you soon!